Category: MAPS

Digital twins for Amazon sustainability

Post author By Jorge Salgado
Post date 20/11/2023
No Comments on Digital twins for Amazon sustainability

Carlo Ratti, director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, and Robert Muggah, co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, recently argued in a Mongabay op-ed how digital twins could support policies to protect and conserve the Amazon while improving people’s well-being by encouraging them to expand green bio-economic activities.

They pointed out that digital maps can help understand the forest ecosystem in more detail than ever before. Using LIDAR and AI technologies, it may soon be possible not only to map and digitalize each individual tree from crown to root, but also to understand and scan how different species are connected to the surrounding topography and how each part of the ecosystem relates to the land around it – i.e. a complex approach-.

Digital twins can therefore help to clarify the relationships between rainforest ecosystems and the cities embedded within them. This includes complex and informal neighborhoods that remain unmapped. Based on this new amount of data and knowledge about the Amazon rainforest, it could be possible to help protect the ecosystem from environmental crime and unsustainable development by promoting and encouraging green alternatives.

Follow this link to read the full article:

https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/can-digital-twins-help-save-the-amazon-commentary/

If you are interested in the activities of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, follow this link:

https://senseable.mit.edu/

And for the Igarapé Institute:

https://shorturl.at/FMO26

Image source: MIT Senseable City Lab.

Tags AI, Amazon, Dgital, rainforest, twins

Geography MAPS Vizualization

Rayshader: An open-source software for the design of 2D and 3D maps

Post author By Jorge Salgado
Post date 20/02/2023
No Comments on Rayshader: An open-source software for the design of 2D and 3D maps

Dr. Tyler Morgan-Wall. It was recently used by Terence Fosstodon to illustrate the population density of the world’s countries in a clear, accurate and stunning set of maps.

You can read more about the tool here, or visualize Terence Fosstodon’s 3D maps on his twitter @researchremora.

MAPS Networks Vizualization World

Measuring power relations in Asia

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 27/10/2021
No Comments on Measuring power relations in Asia

The annual Asia Power Index — launched by the Lowy Institute in 2018 — measures resources and influence to rank the relative power of states in Asia. The project evaluates international power in Asia through 128 indicators across eight thematic measures: military capability and defence networks, economic capability and relationships, diplomatic and cultural influence, as well as resilience and future resources.

The Index ranks 26 countries and territories in terms of their capacity to shape their external environment — its scope reaching as far west as Pakistan, as far north as Russia, and as far into the Pacific as Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

The project allows to choose different types of visualizations, and one of the most interesting among them is the network visualization that shows how countries are connected through their economic, cultural, defence and diplomatic ties.

Environment Geography MAPS SCIENCE Vizualization World

The interactive atlas of climate change

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 28/09/2021
No Comments on The interactive atlas of climate change

The IPCC has recently published their sixth assessment report on the physical evidence of climate change. The report has again confirmed evidence of climate change across all global regions, which will affect rainfall patterns, sea levels, exposure to extreme heat events. To better understand the impact of these changes across regions, the Working Group I has produced an interactive Atlas that allows to visualize the geographical impact of different climate change scenarios. Climate change is here, and it is crucial to comprehend its varying geographical impact, so this is a very welcome tool to help researchers and policy makers in this task.

Books Cities Communication Economy Graph analysis History MAPS Misc Networks Resilience SCIENCE Social network Social science Society Vizualization World

Handbook on cities and networks

Post author By Céline Rozenblat
Post date 14/08/2021
No Comments on Handbook on cities and networks

Edited by Zachary P. Neal, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, US and Céline Rozenblat, Professor of Urban Geography, Faculty of Geosciences and Environment,Université de Lausanne, Switzerland

Publication Date: 2021 ISBN: 978 1 78811 470 7 Extent: 672 pp

‘If you want to understand cities – the innovation and dynamism they generate and the way they sort and segregate people by class, race and other dimensions – you have to start by understanding that cities are networks. Zachary Neal and Céline Rozenblat have done all of us who care about cities a great service by pulling together the very best and brightest thinkers on cities and networks in this terrific volume.’
– Richard Florida, University of Toronto, US and author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis

This Handbook of Cities and Networks provides a cutting-edge overview of research on how economic, social and transportation networks affect processes both in and between cities. Exploring the ways in which cities connect and intertwine, it offers a varied set of collaborations, highlighting different theoretical, historical and methodological perspectives.

International contributions assess the state of the field of network analysis, presenting interdisciplinary insights that draw on theory from geography, economics, sociology, history, archaeology and psychology, and outlining methodological tools that include ethnographic, qualitative and quantitative approaches. Illustrating a framework for integrating the diversity of urban networks, the Handbook demonstrates that by exploring urban networks with different combinations of levels and scales, new insights and opportunities can emerge.

Featuring focused studies on specific regions and cities, this state-of-the-art Handbook is essential reading for scholars and researchers of urban studies and regional science, particularly those focusing on the transformation of cities as connected spaces through intracity and intercity networks. Its core theoretical insights will also benefit graduate students in urban studies and network analysis.

Environment Geography MAPS Vizualization

Mapping electric networks and carbon intensity: how data can inform environmental choices

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 01/05/2021
No Comments on Mapping electric networks and carbon intensity: how data can inform environmental choices

Where does your electricity come from? Does your country’s energy portfolio rely mostly on fossil fuels like coal and gas or renewable sources like wind and hydro-electric? The web platform electricity map allows to answer these questions and also to explore international energy exchanges. Besides, electricity map features a wind and sun layers that allow to assess the potential for renewable energy generation in real time!

Electricity map is a project of tomorrow, a Danish start-up. Olivier Corradi, founder and CEO, explains the functioning of electricity map here: (video in French)

Books Cities MAPS

Out now! Applying the Degree of Urbanisation — A methodological manual to define cities, towns and rural areas

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 31/03/2021
No Comments on Out now! Applying the Degree of Urbanisation — A methodological manual to define cities, towns and rural areas

The definition of cities and their limits is always a challenging task. In fact, urbanization patterns are very diverse and they rarely match administrative subdivisions. Thus, if it is often difficult to define where individual cities start and finish, it is even more so to compare cities across countries with very different history and urbanization patterns.

This manual has been produced by six organisations: the European Commission, the FAO, UN-Habitat, the ILO, the OECD and The World Bank. It develops a harmonized methodology to facilitate international statistical comparisons and to classify the entire territory of a country along an urban-rural continuum. The degree of urbanisation classification defines cities, towns and semi-dense areas, and rural areas.

Art Books History MAPS Networks

Mapping Philosophy in the Paris metro

Post author By Céline Rozenblat
Post date 05/12/2020
No Comments on Mapping Philosophy in the Paris metro

An interesting network interactive vizualization of philosophy where lines and connections are more important than the proximity in the network… follow each line to know more about a philosophical (sometimes literature or artistic) domain (unfortunately in French)

https://lesphilosophesdanslemetro.com/plan/

Geography MAPS Mobility Networks

Tracking public transport in real-time

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 16/05/2020
No Comments on Tracking public transport in real-time

TRAVIC is a real-time tracker of public transport that allows the user to visualize the movement of trains, buses, trams and boats all over the world. It is based on a master thesis project by Patrick Brosi in a collaboration between the Swiss based geoinformatics company Geops with the University of Freiburg, Germany. For background information on how TRAVIC is done you may check their blog.

This tracker provides movement visualization of transit data published by transit agencies and operators from all over the world. The movements are mostly based on static schedule data but for some countries, such as for example the Netherlands, real-time data is available and included in the visualization.

Enjoy the visualization, and let us know how you used this tool and what its applications could be.

Cities Environment MAPS

The Million Neighborhoods initiative: mapping spatial inequalities within cities.

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 15/04/2020
No Comments on The Million Neighborhoods initiative: mapping spatial inequalities within cities.

The Million Neighborhoods Map is a groundbreaking visual tool that provides the first comprehensive look at informal settlements across Africa, helping to identify communities most in need of roads, power, water, sanitation and other infrastructure. Updates for Central and South America, India and parts of Europe and Asia will come online in early 2020.

The Million Neighborhoods Map is the first such map of its kind and digitally renders building infrastructure and street networks – or the lack thereof. The goal is to provide municipal leaders and community residents with a tool to help inform and prioritize infrastructure projects in underserviced neighborhoods, including informal urban settlements that are sometimes known as “slums.”

View the map at https://millionneighborhoods.org.

The Million Neighborhoods initiative is a collaborative network of diverse organizations working locally in Chicago and in neighborhoods throughout the world towards more sustainable and equitable human development. The network builds a common framework, tools, and data for mapping, planning, and coordinating solutions towards fulfilling the UN’s Agenda 2030 for Global Sustainable Development.

For the science behind the map, check out:

Brelsford, C., Martin, T., Hand, J., Bettencourt, Luís M. A., Toward cities without slums: Topology and the spatial evolution of neighborhoods (August 29, 2018). Science Advances. Vol. 4, no. 8, eaar4644. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar4644

Brelsford, C., Martin, T. Bettencourt, Luís M. A., Optimal reblocking as a practical tool for neighborhood development (June 12, 2017) Sage Journals. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399808317712715

Economy Environment Europe Geography MAPS

How will climate change impact European regions?

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 26/02/2020
No Comments on How will climate change impact European regions?

The European Environmental Agency has recently published a cartographic platform to map the impact of global warming on droughts, floods, agriculture, forest fires and sea level rise in Europe. These maps are based on different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios (medium or high) and refer to the expected changes in the period 2041-2070 as compared with the period 1981-2010. Data and climate models and have been published already in various EEA reports and indicators. Based on these maps, what are the challenges that your region faces and how to adapt to them?

Cities Environment Geography MAPS Vizualization

The Atlas of urban expansion- how do cities grow?

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 12/04/2019
No Comments on The Atlas of urban expansion- how do cities grow?

The Atlas of Urban Expansion collects and analyzes data on the quantity and quality of urban expansion in a stratified global sample of 200 cities. With the aid of satellite images researchers have gathered a rich dataset on built-up areas and the associated land use regulations and policies that sheds light on the process of expansion of urban peripheries since 1990. Besides, for a sample of 30 cities, researchers gathered historical data on urban expansion from 1800 to 2014 and used it to generate visually appealing animations that show intuitively the process of urban growth. See, for example, the animation of Los Angeles below.

The Atlas of Urban expansion is a joint initiative by NYU Urban Expansion Program, the Stern school of Business at NYU in partnership with UN-Habitat and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

The Atlas can be freely downloaded, and a number of urban data, maps and metrics can be also downloaded.

Cities Geography MAPS Vizualization

Measuring cities’ fragility: an interactive mapping tool.

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 05/02/2018
No Comments on Measuring cities’ fragility: an interactive mapping tool.

Launched in 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos from Igarapé Institute in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, the United Nations University, 100 Resilient Cities, XSeer and Canada’s Global Affairs, fragile cities is an interactive tool that allows to visualize cities in terms of their fragility. The platform includes information on over 2,100 cities with populations of 250,000 or more. Cities were graded across 11 variables at the urban scale including population growth, inequality, unemployment, access to electricity, pollutions, exposure to terrorism, homicide rates and reported conflict events.and given a score between 1 (low fragility) and 4 (high fragility).

Besides, the evolution of urban fragility parameters in the period 2000-2015, and projections for the future, can be reconstructed by clicking on the dots.Below you can see, for example, the evolution of the fragility index for Lausanne:

Albeit cities’ fragility can be argued to be a much more multidimensional and complex concept, fragile cities is an interesting exploratory tool which could be useful to address issues of urban resilience.

Further information can be accessed here.

Tags resilience

Cities Geography MAPS Vizualization

Transitflow: visualizing public transport routes in space and time

Post author By Andrea Ferloni
Post date 21/12/2017
No Comments on Transitflow: visualizing public transport routes in space and time

Columbia University student Will Geary created an instrument to visualize public transport flows through the 24 hours of the day.

For example, below you can see an example of visualization for the San Francisco Bay Area, in which small colored dots represent each a different mean of public transport (bus, subway, train, ferry..)

Want to know more?

Here you can get detailed information on how these maps where made and get the tools to create your own visualization for the city you’re interested in.